Kitabı oku: «Shavings», sayfa 3

CHAPTER III

Upon a late September day forty-nine years and some months before that upon which Gabe Bearse came to Jed Winslow's windmill shop in Orham with the news of Leander Babbitt's enlistment, Miss Floretta Thompson came to that village to teach the "downstairs" school. Miss Thompson was an orphan. Her father had kept a small drug store in a town in western Massachusetts. Her mother had been a clergyman's daughter. Both had died when she was in her 'teens. Now, at twenty, she came to Cape Cod, pale, slim, with a wealth of light brown hair and a pair of large, dreamy brown eyes. Her taste in dress was peculiar, even eccentric, and Orham soon discovered that she, herself, was also somewhat eccentric.

As a schoolteacher she was not an unqualified success. The "downstairs" curriculum was not extensive nor very exacting, but it was supposed to impart to the boys and girls of from seven to twelve a rudimentary knowledge of the three R's and of geography. In the first two R's, "readin' and 'ritin'," Miss Thompson was proficient. She wrote a flowery Spencerian, which was beautifully "shaded" and looked well on the blackboard, and reading was the dissipation of her spare moments. The third "R," 'rithmetic, she loathed.

Youth, even at the ages of from seven to twelve, is only too proficient in learning to evade hard work. The fact that Teacher took no delight in traveling the prosaic highways of addition, multiplication and division, but could be easily lured to wander the flowery lanes of romantic fiction, was soon grasped by the downstairs pupils. The hour set for recitation by the first class in arithmetic was often and often monopolized by a hold-over of the first class in reading, while Miss Floretta, artfully spurred by questions asked by the older scholars, rhapsodized on the beauties of James Fenimore Cooper's "Uncas," or Dickens' "Little Nell," or Scott's "Ellen." Some of us antiques, then tow-headed little shavers in the front seats, can still remember Miss Floretta's rendition of the lines:

"And Saxon—I am Roderick Dhu!"

The extremely genteel, not to say ladylike, elocution of the Highland chief and the indescribable rising inflection and emphasis on the "I."

These literary rambles had their inevitable effect, an effect noted, after a time, and called to the attention of the school committee by old Captain Lycurgus Batcheldor, whose two grandchildren were among the ramblers.

"Say," demanded Captain Lycurgus, "how old does a young-one have to be afore it's supposed to know how much four times eight is? My Sarah's Nathan is pretty nigh ten and HE don't know it. Gave me three answers he did; first that 'twas forty-eight, then that 'twas eighty-four and then that he'd forgot what 'twas. But I noticed he could tell me a whole string about some feller called Lockintar or Lochinvar or some such outlandish name, and not only his name but where he came from, which was out west somewheres. A poetry piece 'twas; Nate said the teacher'd been speakin' it to 'em. I ain't got no objection to speakin' pieces, but I do object to bein' told that four times eight is eighty-four, 'specially when I'm buyin' codfish at eight cents a pound. I ain't on the school committee, but if I was—"

So the committee investigated and when Miss Thompson's year was up and the question arose as to her re-engagement, there was considerable hesitancy. But the situation was relieved in a most unexpected fashion. Thaddeus Winslow, first mate on the clipper ship, "Owner's Favorite," at home from a voyage to the Dutch East Indies, fell in love with Miss Floretta, proposed, was accepted and married her.

It was an odd match: Floretta, pale, polite, impractical and intensely romantic; Thad, florid, rough and to the point. Yet the married pair seemed to be happy together. Winslow went to sea on several voyages and, four years after the marriage, remained at home for what, for him, was a long time. During that time a child, a boy, was born.

The story of the christening of that child is one of Orham's pet yarns even to this day. It seems that there was a marked disagreement concerning the name to be given him. Captain Thad had had an Uncle Edgar, who had been very kind to him when a boy. The captain wished to name his own youngster after this uncle. But Floretta's heart was set upon "Wilfred," her favorite hero of romance being Wilfred of Ivanhoe. The story is that the parents being no nearer an agreement on the great question, Floretta made a proposal of compromise. She proposed that her husband take up his stand by the bedroom window and the first male person he saw passing on the sidewalk below, the name of that person should be given to their offspring; a sporting proposition certainly. But the story goes on to detract a bit from the sporting element by explaining that Mrs. Winslow was expecting a call at that hour from the Baptist minister, and the Baptist minister's Christian name was "Clarence," which, if not quite as romantic as Wilfred, is by no means common and prosaic. Captain Thad, who had not been informed of the expected ministerial call and was something of a sport himself, assented to the arrangement. It was solemnly agreed that the name of the first male passer-by should be the name of the new Winslow. The captain took up his post of observation at the window and waited.

He did not have to wait long. Unfortunately for romance, the Reverend Clarence was detained at the home of another parishioner a trifle longer than he had planned and the first masculine to pass the Winslow home was old Jedidah Wingate, the fish peddler. Mrs. Diadama Busteed, who was acting as nurse in the family and had been sworn in as witness to the agreement between husband and wife, declared to the day of her death that that death was hastened by the shock to her nervous and moral system caused by Captain Thad's language when old Jedidah hove in sight. He vowed over and over again that he would be everlastingly condemned if he would label a young-one of his with such a crashety-blank-blanked outrage of a name as "Jedidah." "Jedidiah" was bad enough, but there WERE a few Jedidiahs in Ostable County, whereas there was but one Jedidah. Mrs. Winslow, who did not fancy Jedidah any more than her husband did, wept; Captain Thad's profanity impregnated the air with brimstone. But they had solemnly sworn to the agreement and Mrs. Busteed had witnessed it, and an oath is an oath. Besides, Mrs. Winslow was inclined to think the whole matter guided by Fate, and, being superstitious as well as romantic, feared dire calamity if Fate was interfered with. It ended in a compromise and, a fortnight later, the Reverend Clarence, keeping his countenance with difficulty, christened a red-faced and protesting infant "Jedidah Edgar Wilfred Winslow."

Jedidah Edgar Wilfred grew up. At first he was called "Edgar" by his father and "Wilfred" by his mother. His teachers, day school and Sunday school, called him one or the other as suited their individual fancies. But his schoolmates and playfellows, knowing that he hated the name above all else on earth, gleefully hailed him as "Jedidah." By the time he was ten he was "Jed" Winslow beyond hope of recovery. Also it was settled locally that he was "queer"—not "cracked" or "lacking," which would have implied that his brain was affected—but just "queer," which meant that his ways of thinking and acting were different from those of Orham in general.

His father, Captain Thaddeus, died when Jed was fifteen, just through the grammar school and ready to enter the high. He did not enter; instead, the need of money being pressing, he went to work in one of the local stores, selling behind the counter. If his father had lived he would, probably, have gone away after finishing high school and perhaps, if by that time the mechanical ability which he possessed had shown itself, he might even have gone to some technical school or college. In that case Jed Winslow's career might have been very, very different. But instead he went to selling groceries, boots, shoes, dry goods and notions for Mr. Seth Wingate, old Jedidah's younger brother.

As a grocery clerk Jed was not a success, neither did he shine as a clerk in the post office, nor as an assistant to the local expressman. In desperation he began to learn the carpenter's trade and, because he liked to handle tools, did pretty well at it. But he continued to be "queer" and his absent-minded dreaminess was in evidence even then.

"I snum I don't know what to make of him," declared Mr. Abijah Mullett, who was the youth's "boss." "Never know just what he's goin' to do or just what he's goin' to say. I says to him yesterday: 'Jed,' says I, 'you do pretty well with tools and wood, considerin' what little experience you've had. Did Cap'n Thad teach you some or did you pick it up yourself?' He never answered for a minute or so, seemed to be way off dreamin' in the next county somewheres. Then he looked at me with them big eyes of his and he drawled out: 'Comes natural to me, Mr. Mullett, I guess,' he says. 'There seems to be a sort of family feelin' between my head and a chunk of wood.' Now what kind of an answer was that, I want to know!"

Jed worked at carpentering for a number of years, sometimes going as far away as Ostable to obtain employment. And then his mother was seized with the illness from which, so she said, she never recovered. It is true that Doctor Parker, the Orham physician, declared that she had recovered, or might recover if she cared to. Which of the pair was right does not really matter. At all events Mrs. Winslow, whether she recovered or not, never walked abroad again. She was "up and about," as they say in Orham, and did some housework, after a fashion, but she never again set foot across the granite doorstep of the Winslow cottage. Probably the poor woman's mind was slightly affected; it is charitable to hope that it was. It seems the only reasonable excuse for the oddity of her behavior during the last twenty years of her life, for her growing querulousness and selfishness and for the exacting slavery in which she kept her only son.

During those twenty years whatever ambition Jedidah Edgar Wilfred may once have had was thoroughly crushed. His mother would not hear of his leaving her to find better work or to obtain promotion. She needed him, she wailed; he was her life, her all; she should die if he left her. Some hard-hearted townspeople, Captain Hunniwell among them, disgustedly opined that, in view of such a result, Jed should be forcibly kidnaped forthwith for the general betterment of the community. But Jed himself never rebelled. He cheerfully gave up his youth and early middle age to his mother and waited upon her, ran her errands, sat beside her practically every evening and read romance after romance aloud for her benefit. And his "queerness" developed, as under such circumstances it was bound to do.

Money had to be earned and, as the invalid would not permit him to leave her to earn it, it was necessary to find ways of earning it at home. Jed did odd jobs of carpentering and cabinet making, went fishing sometimes, worked in gardens between times, did almost anything, in fact, to bring in the needed dollars. And when he was thirty-eight years old he made and sold his first "Cape Cod Winslow windmill," the forerunner of the thousands to follow. That mill, made in some of his rare idle moments and given to the child of a wealthy summer visitor, made a hit. The child liked it and other children wanted mills just like it. Then "grown-ups" among the summer folk took up the craze. "Winslow mills" became the fad. Jed built his little shop, or the first installment of it.

Mrs. Floretta Winslow died when her son was forty. A merciful release, Captain Sam and the rest called it, but to Jed it was a stunning shock. He had no one to take care of now except himself and he did not know what to do. He moped about like a deserted cat. Finally he decided that he could not live in the old house where he was born and had lived all his life. He expressed his feelings concerning that house to his nearest friend, practically his sole confidant, Captain Sam.

"I can't somehow seem to stand it, Sam," he said, solemnly. "I can't stay in that house alone any longer, it's—it's too sociable."

The captain, who had expected almost anything but that, stared at him.

"Sociable!" he repeated. "You're sailin' stern first, Jed. Lonesome's what you mean, of course."

Jed shook his head.

"No-o," he drawled, "I mean sociable. There's too many boys in there, for one thing."

"Boys!" Captain Sam was beginning to be really alarmed now. "Boys! Say—say, Jed Winslow, you come along home to dinner with me. I bet you've forgot to eat anything for the last day or so— been inventin' some new kind of whirlagig or other—and your empty stomach's gone to your head and made it dizzy. Boys! Gracious king! Come on home with me."

Jed smiled his slow smile. "I don't mean real boys, Sam," he explained. "I mean me—I'm the boys. Nights now when I'm walkin' around in that house alone I meet myself comin' round every corner. Me when I was five, comin' out of the buttery with a cooky in each fist; and me when I was ten sittin' studyin' my lesson book in the corner; and me when I was fifteen, just afore Father died, sittin' all alone thinkin' what I'd do when I went to Boston Tech same as he said he was cal'latin' to send me. Then—"

He paused and lapsed into one of his fits of musing. His friend drew a breath of relief.

"Oh!" he exclaimed. "Well, I don't mind your meetin' yourself. I thought first you'd gone off your head, blessed if I didn't. You're a queer critter, Jed. Get those funny notions from readin' so many books, I guess likely. Meetin' yourself! What an idea that is! I suppose you mean that, bein' alone in that house where you've lived since you was born, you naturally get to thinkin' about what used to be."

Jed stared wistfully at the back of a chair.

"Um-hm," he murmured, "and what might have been—and—and ain't."

The captain nodded. Of all the people in Orham he, he prided himself, was the only one who thoroughly understood Jed Winslow. And sometimes he did partially understand him; this was one of the times.

"Now—now—now," he said, hastily, "don't you get to frettin' yourself about your not amountin' to anything and all that. You've got a nice little trade of your own buildin' up here. What more do you want? We can't all be—er—Know-it-alls like Shakespeare, or— or rich as Standard Oil Companies, can we? Look here, what do you waste your time goin' back twenty-five years and meetin' yourself for? Why don't you look ahead ten or fifteen and try to meet yourself then? You may be a millionaire, a—er—windmill trust or somethin' of that kind, by that time. Eh? Ha, ha!"

Jed rubbed his chin.

"When I meet myself lookin' like a millionaire," he observed, gravely, "I'll have to do the way you do at your bank, Sam—call in somebody to identify me."

Captain Sam laughed. "Well, anyhow," he said, "don't talk any more foolishness about not livin' in your own house. If I was you—"

Mr. Winslow interrupted. "Sam," he said, "the way to find out what you would do if you was me is to make sure WHAT you'd do—and then do t'other thing, or somethin' worse."

"Oh, Jed, be reasonable."

Jed looked over his spectacles. "Sam," he drawled, "if I was reasonable I wouldn't be me."

And he lived no longer in the old house. Having made up his mind, he built a small two-room addition to his workshop and lived in that. Later he added a sleeping room—a sort of loft—and a little covered porch on the side toward the sea. Here, in pleasant summer twilights or on moonlight nights, he sat and smoked. He had a good many callers and but few real friends. Most of the townspeople liked him, but almost all considered him a joke, an oddity, a specimen to be pointed out to those of the summer people who were looking for "types." A few, like Mr. Gabriel Bearse, who distinctly did NOT understand him and who found his solemn suggestions and pointed repartee irritating at times, were inclined to refer to him in these moments of irritation as "town crank." But they did not really mean it when they said it. And some others, like Leander Babbitt or Captain Hunniwell, came to ask his advice on personal matters, although even they patronized him just a little. He had various nicknames, "Shavings" being the most popular.

His peculiar business, the making of wooden mills, toys and weather vanes, had grown steadily. Now he shipped many boxes of these to other seashore and mountain resorts. He might have doubled his output had he chosen to employ help or to enlarge his plant, but he would not do so. He had rented the old Winslow house furnished once to a summer tenant, but he never did so again, although he had many opportunities. He lived alone in the addition to the little workshop, cooking his own meals, making his own bed, and sewing on his own buttons.

And on the day following that upon which Leander Babbitt enrolled to fight for Uncle Sam, Jedidah Edgar Wilfred Winslow was forty- five years old.

He was conscious of that fact when he arose. It was a pleasant morning, the sun was rising over the notched horizon of the tumbling ocean, the breeze was blowing, the surf on the bar was frothing and roaring cheerily—and it was his birthday. The morning, the sunrise, the surf and all the rest were pleasant to contemplate—his age was not. So he decided not to contemplate it. Instead he went out and hoisted at the top of the short pole on the edge of the bluff the flag he had set there on the day when the United States declared war against the Hun. He hoisted it every fine morning and he took it in every night.

He stood for a moment, watching the red, white and blue flapping bravely in the morning sunshine, then he went back into his little kitchen at the rear of the workshop and set about cooking his breakfast. The kitchen was about as big as a good-sized packing box and Jed, standing over the oilstove, could reach any shelf in sight without moving. He cooked his oatmeal porridge, boiled his egg and then sat down at the table in the next room—his combined living and dining-room and not very much bigger than the kitchen— to eat. When he had finished, he washed the dishes, walked up to the post office for the mail and then, entering the workshop, took up the paint brush and the top sailor-man of the pile beside him and began work. This, except on Sundays, was his usual morning routine. It varied little, except that he occasionally sawed or whittled instead of painted, or, less occasionally still, boxed some of his wares for shipment.

During the forenoon he had some visitors. A group of summer people from the hotel came in and, after pawing over and displacing about half of the movable stock, bought ten or fifteen dollars' worth and departed. Mr. Winslow had the satisfaction of hearing them burst into a shout of laughter as they emerged into the yard and the shrill voice of one of the females in the party rose above the hilarity with: "Isn't he the WEIRDEST thing!" And an accompanying male voice appraised him as "Some guy, believe me! S-o-o-me guy!" Jed winced a little, but he went on with his painting. On one's forty-fifth birthday one has acquired or should have acquired a certain measure of philosophical resignation.

Other customers or lookers came and went. Maud Hunniwell, Captain Sam's daughter, dropped in on her way to the post office. The captain was a widower and Maud was his only child. She was, therefore, more than the apple of his eye, she was a whole orchard of apples. She was eighteen, pretty and vivacious, and her father made a thorough job of spoiling her. Not that the spoiling had injured her to any great extent, it had not as yet, but that was Captain Sam's good luck. Maud was wearing a new dress—she had a new one every week or so—and she came into the windmill shop to show it. Of course she would have denied that that was the reason for her coming, but the statement stands, nevertheless. She and Jed were great chums and had been since she could walk. She liked him, took his part when she heard him criticized or made fun of, and was always prettily confidential and friendly when they were alone together. Of course there was a touch of superiority and patronage in her friendship. She should not be blamed for this; all Orham, consciously or unconsciously, patronized Jed Winslow.

She came into the inner shop and sat down upon the same upturned box upon which her father had sat the afternoon before. Her first remark, after "good mornings" had been exchanged, was concerning the "Private" sign on the inner side of the door.

"What in the world have you put that sign inside here for?" she demanded.

Mr. Winslow explained, taking his own deliberate time in making the explanation. Miss Hunniwell wrinkled her dainty upturned nose and burst into a trill of laughter.

"Oh, that's lovely," she declared, "and just like you, besides. And do you think Gabe Bearse will go back into the other room when he sees it?"

Jed looked dreamily over his spectacles at the sign. "I don't know," he drawled. "If I thought he'd go wherever that sign was I ain't sure but I'd tack it on the cover of the well out in the yard yonder."

His fair visitor laughed again. "Why, Jed," she exclaimed. "You wouldn't want to drown him, would you?"

Jed seemed to reflect. "No-o," he answered, slowly, "don't know's I would—not in my well, anyhow."

Miss Hunniwell declared that that was all nonsense. "You wouldn't drown a kitten," she said. "I know that because when Mrs. Nathaniel Rogers' old white cat brought all her kittens over here the first of this summer you wouldn't even put them out in the yard at night, to say nothing of drowning them. All six and the mother cat stayed here and fairly swarmed over you and ate you out of house and home. Father said he believed they fed at the first table and you were taking what was left. It was a mercy the old cat decided to lead them back to the Rogers' again or I don't know WHAT might have become of you by this time."

Jed seemed to be thinking; there was a reminiscent twinkle in his eye.

"The old cat didn't lead 'em back," he said. "Nathaniel took 'em back. Didn't I ever tell you about that?"

"No, you didn't. You KNOW you didn't. Mr. Rogers took them back? I can't believe it. He told everywhere about town that he was glad to get rid of the whole family and, as you and the cats seemed to be mutually happy together, he wasn't going to disturb you. He thought it was a great joke on you. And he took them back himself? Why?"

Mr. Winslow rubbed his chin. "I don't know's I'd ought to say anything about it," he said. "I haven't afore. I wouldn't interfere with Nate's sales for anything."

"Sales? Sales of what? Oh, you mean thing! Don't be so provoking! Tell me the whole story this minute."

Jed painted a moment or two. Then he said: "We-ell, Maud, you see those kittens got to be kind of a nuisance. They was cunnin' and cute and all that, but they was so everlastin' lively and hungry that they didn't give me much of a chance. I was only one, you see, and they had a majority vote every time on who should have the bed and the chairs and the table and one thing or 'nother. If I sat down I sat on a cat. If I went to bed I laid down on cats, and when I turned them out and turned in myself they came and laid down on ME. I slept under fur blankets most of June. And as for eatin'— Well, every time I cooked meat or fish they sat down in a circle and whooped for some. When I took it off the fire and put it in a plate on the table, I had to put another plate and a—a plane or somethin' heavy on top of it or they'd have had it sartin sure. Then when I sat down to eat it they formed a circle again like a reg'lar band and tuned up and hollered. Lord a-mercy, HOW they did holler! And if one of the kittens stopped, run out of wind or got a sore throat or anything, the old cat would bite it to set it goin' again. She wan't goin' to have any shirkin' in HER orchestra. I ate to music, as you might say, same as I've read they do up to Boston restaurants. And about everything I did eat was stuffed with cats' hairs. Seemed sometimes as if those kittens was solid fur all the way through; they never could have shed all that hair from the outside. Somebody told me that kittens never shed hair, 'twas only full grown cats did that. I don't believe it. Nate Rogers' old maltee never shed all that alone; allowin' her a half barrel, there was all of another barrel spread around the premises. No-o, those cats was a good deal of a nuisance. Um-hm. . . . Yes, they was. . . ."

He paused and, apparently having forgotten that he was in the middle of a story, began to whistle lugubriously and to bend all his other energies to painting. Miss Hunniwell, who had laughed until her eyes were misty, wiped them with her handkerchief and commanded him to go on.

"Tell me the rest of it," she insisted. "How did you get rid of them? How did Mr. Rogers come to take them back?"

"Eh? . . . Oh, why, you see, I went over to Nate's three or four times and told him his cat and kittens were here and I didn't feel right to deprive him of 'em any longer. He said never mind, I could keep 'em long as I wanted to. I said that was about as long as I had kept 'em. Then he said he didn't know's he cared about ever havin' 'em again; said he and his wife had kind of lost their taste for cats, seemed so. I—well, I hinted that, long as the tribe was at my house I wan't likely to have a chance to taste much of anything, but it didn't seem to have much effect. Then—"

"Yes, yes; go on! go on!"

"Oh. . . . Then one day Nate he happened to be in here—come to borrow somethin', some tool seems to me 'twas—and the cats was climbin' round promiscuous same as usual. And one of the summer women came in while he was here, wanted a mill for her little niece or somethin'. And she saw one of the animals and she dropped everything else and sang out: 'Oh, what a beautiful kitten! What unusual coloring! May I see it?' Course she was seein' it already, but I judged she meant could she handle it, so I tried to haul the critter loose from my leg—there was generally one or more of 'em shinnin' over me somewhere. It squalled when I took hold of it and she says: 'Oh, it doesn't want to come, does it! It must have a very affectionate disposition to be so attached to you.' Seemed to me 'twas attached by its claws more'n its disposition, but I pried it loose and handed it to her. Then she says again, 'What unusual colorin'! Will you sell this one to me? I'll give you five dollars for it.'"

He stopped again. Another reminder from Miss Hunniwell was necessary to make him continue.

"And you sold one of those kittens for five dollars?" she cried.

"No-o."

"You didn't? Why, you foolish man! Why not?"

"I never had a chance. Afore I could say a word Nate Rogers spoke up and said the kittens belonged to him. Then she saw another one that she hadn't seen afore and she says: 'Oh, that one has more unusual colorin's even than this. I never saw such color in a cat.' Course she meant ON a cat but we understood what she meant. 'Are they a very rare breed?' she asked. Nate said they was and—"

Miss Hunniwell interrupted. "But they weren't, were they?" she cried. "I never knew they were anything more than plain tabby."

Jed shook his head. "Nate said they was," he went on solemnly. "He said they were awful rare. Then she wanted to know would he sell one for five dollars. He said no, he couldn't think of it."

"Why, the greedy old thing!"

"And so he and she had it back and forth and finally they struck a bargain at seven dollars for the one that looked most like a crazy quilt."

"Seven dollars for a CAT? What color was it, for goodness' sake?"

"Oh, all kinds, seemed so. Black and white and maltee and blue and red and green—"

"Green! What ARE you talking about? Who ever saw a green cat?"

"This woman saw one that was part green and she bought it. Then she said she'd take it right along in her car. Said she had a friend that was as loony about cats as she was and she was goin' to fetch her right down the very next day. And a couple of hours after she'd gone Nate and his boy came back with a clothes basket with a board over the top and loaded in the balance of the family and went off with 'em. I ain't seen a hair of 'em since—no, I won't say that quite, but I ain't seen THEM."

"And didn't he give you any of the seven dollars?"

"No-o."

"But you had been feeding those kittens and their mother for weeks."

"Ye-es."

"But didn't you ASK for anything?"

"We-ll, I told Nate he might maybe leave one of the kittens, so's I could have a—er—souvenir of the visit, but he wouldn't do it. Said those kittens was rare and—er—precious, or words to that effect. He didn't intend to let another go as cheap as he had that one."

"Oh. . . . I see. I remember now; I heard some one saying something, early in July, about the sign on the Rogers' front fence. 'Rare Cats for Sale' they said it was. I think. Of course, I never thought of THOSE kittens. He must have sold them all, for the sign isn't there now."

Jed whistled a few bars. "I don't hardly think he's sold 'em," he said. "I presume likely he's just gone out of the business."

"I don't see why he shouldn't sell them. Green cats ought to sell quickly enough, I should think. Were they green, honest and truly, Jed?"